In secret, behind locked gates, our Nation's Oldest City dumped a landfill in a lake (Old City Reservoir), while emitting sewage in our rivers and salt marsh. Organized citizens exposed and defeated pollution, racism and cronyism. We elected a new Mayor. We're transforming our City -- advanced citizenship. Ask questions. Make disclosures. Demand answers. Be involved. Expect democracy. Report and expose corruption. Smile! Help enact a St. Augustine National Park and Seashore. We shall overcome!

Monday, September 11, 2017

Controversial St. Augustine Beach Mayor RICHARD BURTT O'BRIEN is again discharging water from his several adjoining tourist businesses to the storm sewer.

We've got the video -- O'BRIEN's employees have apparently placed an underground pipe on his property, leading to the storm sewer manhole, where someone has taken a concrete saw and carved out a big 'ole space for the water to flow into the storm sewer.

I've reported the discharge to the National Response Center of the United States Coast Guard, where CPO Kevin Williams took the report this afternoon. It will be referred to EPA Region 4 in Atlanta and to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for investigation:

Thanks to Mark and Rosetta Bailey for videotaping Mayor O"BRIEN's discharge into the storm water system. They stayed on the public right of way in filming the discharge.

Anyone witnessing acts of possible illegal pollution anywhere in America should report them to the National Response Center at 800-424-8802. Tell them the facts, the address, the names of the potentially responsible parties and their telephone numbers. You will get a report number. You may make your reports anonymously, but I always give my name.

By reporting possible pollution events to 800-424-8802, you can make sure that your concerns are actually investigated. That's what I've been doing since we caught the City of St. Augustine dumping a landfill in a lake in 2006. Local burghers hate it when the National Response Center calls them.

Reporting possible illegal pollution to the National Response Center is the preferred way of doing justice, my friends at EPA Region 4 told me years ago.

On the other hand, referring possible illegal pollution to FDEP is like talking to a post -- without an NRC report number, your concerns about possible illegal pollution may be ignored or covered up by FDEP under the maladministration of controversial Florida Governor RICHARD LYNN SCOTT.

UPDATE: We checked to see if St. Augustine Beach Mayor RICH O'BRIEN was dumping his 60 foot pool's water onto the beach. Mirabile dictu, mutatis mutandis: No, he was not.Wonder why?

Thanks to government watchdog Thomas F. Reynolds, Jr. and his protected disclosures to the National Response Center after Hurricane Matthew, O'BRIEN has left our dunes unmolested after Hurricane Irma.

Lesson learned: We, the People can "do anything with these phones."

Those are the words that JFK's civil rights aide, later U.S. Senator, Harris Wofford said to his White House colleagues on Inauguration Day, 1961. JFK had seen the all-white Coast Guard contingent in the Inaugural Parade and asked Mr. Wofford to do something. Mr. Wofford picked up the telephone, made one phone call, and the Coast Guard was desegregated. Making history: you've got to pick up the telephone to do something about official oppression.

Double-minded Mayor O'BRIEN is a recidivist lawbreaker fined $200 for illegal, deceptive, unfair campaign activities by the Florida Elections Commission, fined $25,000 by fellow Commissioners for illegal construction at 16 F Street, rejected by Judge Howard O. McGillin in efforts to obtain a "stalking" injunction against Mr. Reynolds, and delayed in his appointment to the Tourist Development Commission over ethics concerns, then seated after lying about his record and securing votes from his tourism cronies.

What's next? LEONARD PATRICK TRINCA, who is O'BRIEN's campaign manager, friend and neighbor, is facing misdemeanor assault charges for his shoving Ms. Rosetta Bailey at the St. Augustine Beach City Hall polling place on Election Day, November 8, 2016. Watch this case. More here.

LEONARD PATRICK TRINCA, landlord, investor and CEO of several companies, including SCHOENHUT, manufacturer of toy pianos, is charged with battery on St. Augustine Beach City Commission candidate Rose Bailey on Election Day (November 8, 2016) at City Hall in St. Augustine Beach